When I was young and at college studying computer studies (zzzzz) at college ... I used to skip class and go play games at the arcade (stories on matilda street) ... incidently I failed my college course !!!

Anyway.

What are your top 3 favorite arcade games ?

Mine are:

Starforce.
Krull.
Gauntlet.

(I also used to love flicky and mad-planets).

Gauntlet
Elite
Driller

... all on the Spectrum.

I never got this?? Must have been my grandad's fault. I have never ever played arcade games.

I just don't get it! :o

Moon Maiden

Arcade games

Asteroids - Atari
Defender - Williams
1942 - Can't remember who, Bally? (edit - it was actually called 19xx by capcom)

Arcade style
defender - bbc micro
monsters (space panic) - bbc micro
xenon II - amiga

Best ever games
Elite - BBC Micro (wow!)
Carrier Command - Amiga (wow)
Starglider II - Amiga (double wow)

Some really cool games there Phan ...

Such a buzz playing anything like defender / starforce ... no over the top power-ups complicating the issue ... just pure skill and WOW at the adrenlyn of it all ...

Mind you ... I love some new arcade games ... esp the ones where you can get in to the cabinet and it vibrates (kinky!) ... u know the ones ... big racing games in sit down cabinets !?

I so still love pac man LMAO

Originally posted by Phanerothyme

xenon II - amiga


:D :D :D :D

I loved that game!!

my phone ringtone is Xenon II :D

Yeah Xenon II was a great game,cool music,and super nashwan power ruled.As for old arcade games goes,some of these aint really that old,but i played them as a kid,so i think there old,and yes i know theres more than 3 here!

Outrun
Chase HQ
Operation Wolf
Bubble Bobble
Rainbow Islands
Final Fight
Street Frighter II (one game i am truely unbeatable on)

If i think of anymore i'll let you know.

pacman - of course

then two that were on the computer dad would bring home from work in the holidays - no idea what they were called

one was a basic shooting game

the other was a precurser to the nokia snake game now

they were all fab!

It has to be the original

Space Invaders - maybe showing my age here, but used to play it all the time around 78-80 ish - just simple skill needed - you didnt need a degree to understand the functions.

Remember the Glass table ones in pubs and stuff - they were ok until someone spilt beer or flicked fag ash all over. You couldnt see anything after that.

Double Dragon
Street Fighter II
Mortal Combat

Originally posted by JamieW
Some really cool games there Phan ...

Such a buzz playing anything like defender / starforce ... no over the top power-ups complicating the issue ... just pure skill and WOW at the adrenlyn of it all ...

Mind you ... I love some new arcade games ... esp the ones where you can get in to the cabinet and it vibrates (kinky!) ... u know the ones ... big racing games in sit down cabinets !?

Remember Space Harrier? Great cabinet, but if you ever played the game on a standard arcade (no flying seat) then it was pretty dull, same with Firefox and some others - as often happens, gimmickry to cloak less good games.

Last time I spent any serious money on an arcade game it was called virtua racing, and very good it was too, that was back in 94 - two racing car cabinets with FF steeringwheels racing against one another, and a choice of tracks, very competitive, and expensive at 50p a pop.

Did I mention:
Spychaser? That was also top.

I remember playing Defender on the BBC micro, an almost perfect clone of it at least, called something else, planetoid maybe?

That was a game that demanded lightning quick reflexes and good hand/eye coordination. Still remember that very unfamiliar feeling of playing a game for something like 30 minutes and then having to stop because my pulse was racing and my hands shaking from the adrenalin (aged 12) - a whole new vista of discovery of different states of mind opened up there...

Ah the memories. Some great games mentioned :)

Defender and missile command are favourites of mine.

My best game ever would be between Elite (on the Archimedes) or Civilisation on the PC.

Golden Axe was great when I were a lad! Incidentally, the music for Xenon II was written by Bomb the Bass - who have done many other, equally great tunes.

Other Classics: Double Dragon, Shinobi (sat in the foyer of a hotel in Spain for 2 weeks!!), Street Fighter II

Modern Classics: Time Crisis II, Soul Caliber, Sega Rally...

Also - mr Craig, I will take you up on your SFII challenge any time you wish!! I'm damn good at that series!!!

Originally posted by purplepippa
pacman - of course

then two that were on the computer dad would bring home from work in the holidays - no idea what they were called

one was a basic shooting game

the other was a precurser to the nokia snake game now

they were all fab!

They sound like the games you got free with GWBASIC on older PCs. Did the shooting game involve two monkeys on buildings throwing bananas at each other?

Defender on the BBC was ace ... and called Planetoid (for legal reasons) ... and all the Acornsoft games in them days were just miles ahead of the competition ...

Defender had the tendency to knacker your Space Bar on your BBC keyboard.

Originally posted by Agent Dan
Also - mr Craig, I will take you up on your SFII challenge any time you wish!! I'm damn good at that series!!!

Bring it on!!!

I better go and get the PS2 fired up and get some practice in.

Here is a story for you

Back in 1980 I had this cool boyfriend who had just passed his driving test and his mum sometimes let him drive her car.

Every Saturday morning we would drive to Redcar and go to the arcades where he would play Space Invaders for hours and then we would go home. He was obsessed with it, totally, beating his personal best score week after week.

I met him online through Friends Reunited about 18 months ago and now he is a rich man who is semi-retired at the age of 40 having made a fortune writing video games and games for playstation etc.

So, I think Space Invaders has a lot to answer for.

Got Defender and Tempest on the pc, Def is on Williams Arcade Classics from GT interactive(got it from Makro), Tempest is on Atari Anniversary Edition from Infogrammes(from Asda)

both top games

Originally posted by alchresearch
They sound like the games you got free with GWBASIC on older PCs. Did the shooting game involve two monkeys on buildings throwing bananas at each other?

Yes!! I'd forgotten that but as soon as you mentioned them I could see them instantly!!

This would have been in the 80s, and because my dad is a uni computer lecturer he got to bring home the "height of technology" for a few weeks each summer. We never let him do any work on them though!

Space harrier
Out Run
Operation Wolf

Double Dragon.
King of Boxing
Street Fighter 1
Yie Ar Kung Fu

Yeah Double Dragon was a great game,until you started getting beaten up by prostitutes!!
Mortal Kombat is up there on my list as well,it was like Pitfighter (anther game that i love),only a bilion times better,but it used to stress the hell out of me when you just couldn't manage to pull off those fatalities!

Ahhh man, this brings back the memories...

Not in any order;

Outrun
Rainbow Islands
Chase HQ (sitting down version)
Afterburner (sitting down version)
R-Type (still great now)
Silkworm (always being the chopper in 2 player mode)
Aliens just cos I loved the film
Operation Wolf

Loved em all, thankgooodness for emulators!!!

Originally posted by JamieW

What are your top 3 favorite arcade games ?

Mine are:

Gauntlet.

(

The trouble is with Gauntlet is that is cost too much. I preferred it on the computer.

Does anyone remember these oldies?

Space Harrier
Shinobi
Track & Field
Spy Hunter


I used to play these in Links Leisure near red gates on Saturdays

Originally posted by Lickszz
Does anyone remember these oldies?

Space Harrier
Shinobi
Track & Field
Spy Hunter


I used to play these in Links Leisure near red gates on Saturdays

Space Harrier was OK, but pants without the moving cabinet.

Spy Hunter was another ACE game - as we used to say. Good soundtrack to IIRC.

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Space Harrier was OK, but pants without the moving cabinet.

Spy Hunter was another ACE game - as we used to say. Good soundtrack to IIRC.

Yeah the moving cab made the difference. Spy Hunter, so basic but brilliant. I used to enjoy trying to crash the truck that the car came out of off the road. :D

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Paperboy.

Originally posted by Sidla
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Paperboy.

oh yeah. Forgot all about it. A classic!

All the games mentioned can be played using MAME emulation. Go here (http://www.vg-network.com/) to get the emulator, you'll have to find the roms on the net. Newsgroups are a good place to start :thumbsup:

Remember Pong, Frogger, Asteroids et al? Well relive your youth and play em online here:

http://www.80smusiclyrics.com/games/#null

excellent!

My fave classic era arcade games are definitely:

Final Fight
WWF Wrestlefest
Double Dragon 2
Street Fighter (All versions from SF1 right through to SF Alpha 3)
Bomb Jack
Pac Man
Pac Land
Star Wars (Atari)
Return of the Jedi (Atari - the one you could sit in)

More modern ones:

Sega Star Wars Trilogy
Shadow Dancer
The Simpsons
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Other formats:

Repton 1 and 3 (BBC Micro)
Imogen (BBC Micro)
Granny's Garden 1 and 2 (BBC Micro)
Way of the Exploding Fist (Speccy)
Target Renegade (Speccy)
Fantasy World Dizzy (Speccy)
Seymour goes to Hollywood (Speccy)
Super Mario World (SNES)
Super Star Wars (SNES)
Super Tennis (SNES)
WCW Vs NWO: Revenge (N64)
WWF Wrestlemania 2000 (N64)
WWF No Mercy (still THE best console wrestling game IMO) (N64)

R-Type
Teenage Mutant Turtles
Simpsons

I still think Willimas Defender is the best arcade game ever. i remember the frustration of trying to get the hang of all those buttons for reversing, hyperspace, smart bombs. Was very envious of those people who could actually 'clock' the damn machine.

Hard to pick just 3, but I'll go for

Bomb Jack
Qix
Out Run

Best arcade manufacturer has to be Sega, even today. So many classics and their hardware is always ahead of the game.

Mr Do! - Universal
Tapper - Bally Midway
Super Sprint - Atari

Are all fab!

yes Double Dragon
yes Gauntlet

Xybots
Star Wars
rolling thunder
outrun
solomans key are worth looking at...

Originally posted by Lickable
R-Type
Teenage Mutant Turtles
Simpsons

If you like R-Type, then try `R-Type Leo`(Japan rev.3)

in order;
Pheonix
Asteroids
Defender

the best games platform of the 80's?
remeber the ZX81? how cack was that! half a k memory i think?!

i had a Spectrum 48k and my favourite games were
the hobbit
manic miner
cookie
my spectrum pished over my mates Vic 20 but then he got a Commodore 64 :0(

my posh mate had a BBC
there was also the Acorn Electron
was there a Neo Geo or something?? or was that more modern

Wizball and Ghostbusters.

Both on the C64.

packman
space invaders
asteroids!!

they all rule

Other formats have now been mentioned, so what about:

Super Mario Kart

Super BomberMan - 4 player

Both on Snes.

Originally posted by Bedhead
was there a Neo Geo or something?? or was that more modern

Neo Geo is modern.

They have the NEO GEO hardware in some arcade games ... inc:

Metal Slug (1,2,3)
Neo Turf Masters (golf game)

Metal Slug Super Vehicle 001 - SNK is tops

completed it last week

Originally posted by Jamie
Neo Geo is modern.



hmm what is it i'm thinking of then... was it maybe gemini?? a game console that came out around C64 - i think it had about umm 60 or 80k memory - definately began with a G

Whilst Gauntlet, etc are definites... there was one I used to play but never found the name.

It was a vertical scroller, you in a ship killing spaceships, dinosaurs, etc. The thing about it was a clever system of power-ups. Each one gave you a new part to your ship and 3 goes at your special action. The special action involved splitting the ship up. When you reached the maximum 5 your ship became a phoenix for a while.

The clever part was the fact that if you got a slight knock you lost one of the powerups and the only way to gain more special actions once you had all 5 pieces was to take a glancing hit then get a new powerup to take you back to 5. The glancing hit often went wrong and you'd insert another credit :D

Originally posted by venger
Other formats have now been mentioned, so what about:

Super Mario Kart

Super BomberMan - 4 player

Both on Snes.

Super Tennis on the SNES ****** all over Super Bomberman, from a great height, for multiplayer laughs IMO...

Well excuse me fo making a point...

Space Harrier
Street Fighter II
Ridge Racer

Here is a story for you

Back in 1980 I had this cool boyfriend who had just passed his driving test and his mum sometimes let him drive her car.

Every Saturday morning we would drive to Redcar and go to the arcades where he would play Space Invaders for hours and then we would go home. He was obsessed with it, totally, beating his personal best score week after week.


He sure knew how to spoil a lady obviously.......

rally x (i used to wag it from school, go to a garage round the corner from school and play rally x all day, ah those were the days :) )
pacman
galaxians

and to make 5 then itd be
pacland
space invaders :P

Hmm...long time since I frequented arcades:

Star Castle
Time Pilot
Pheonix

To be honest though, I've always preferred pinball to arcade machines